A rendering experiment made in 1 week based on the prompt "new skill."

Spiral Sprites

This is an experiment based on a random thought: could you take pictures of an object from a bunch of different angles to mimic a 3D mesh? 

Each object in the scene is a blend of 12 images of items around my apartment. Using a compass, I took a picture of each in increments of 30 degrees, and then wrote a shader that blends between these based on the camera angle.

This produces (what I think) is a pretty unique and fun effect, though it works much better for cylindrical/spherical objects with uniform dimensions. With more time, I suspect it is possible to refine the shader and make it work better with non-uniform objects as well.

Controls

WASD to move, QE to strafe.